Chinese leading battery company Svolt Energy unveiled on Tuesday several new products at its Battery Day event, forecasting a gradual demand recovery from Q2 2024, Kallanish reports.

During the event in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, the manufacturer emphasised its continued iteration and application expansion for its so-called Flying Stack short blade batteries. The technology route features high voltage and fast charging, providing higher safety, mileage range and charging efficiency. Svolt will focus this type of battery on demand from the hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle markets.

Yang Hongxin, president and ceo of Svolt Energy, said that the flying stack short blade batteries produced under the hybrid platform enable 20% more volume utilisation, 5% higher energy density, 10% higher power, and 5% lower cost. 

Expecting significant growth in PHEVs and extended-range hybrids uptake, Svolt says it foresees demand to gradually recover from Q2 2024. Next year, the company will target at least 11 domestic strategic customers, six overseas customers and over 40 new model deployments. Technically, the ambition is to reduce manufacturing costs by 40%, procurement costs by 20% and new production lines by 14%.

While mentioning that auto partners Hozon Auto and Tank will renew contracts for existing models, the ceo says there would be no price increase on Svolt’s products despite improved quality.

Hongxin also introduced the so-called L600, a new fast-charging short blade lithium iron phosphate cell product. The cell provides entry-level mileage range for A0 and A-level vehicles under 400-voltage platforms, and satisfies mid-to-long mileage range for high-end models under max 750V platform, Svolt claims. The mass production of the 133-ampere version will start in Q3 2024, with the 130-Ah version starting in Q4 2024. 

The company also debuted a ternary short blade fast charging cell product supporting a mileage range of over 350 km, and a 175 watt-hours/kilogram short blade battery compatible with both commercial and passenger EVs. The latter one is to be mass-produced in May 2024. 

Another new product, the Dragon Armor battery, has successfully passed the thermal diffusion experiment, the ceo discloses. Series production should begin in Q2 2024 and will be loaded on an EV model from an unnamed Chinese start-up in 2024 after the winter testing.

Svolt also released new standard box and cell products for energy storage, as well as the world’s first integrated power and energy storage battery pack, Basalt. 

Although the company has deployed sodium-ion batteries, Hongxin says it didn’t expect a great volume of loading soon. With the sharp decline of lithium carbonate prices, the cost-benefit of the sodium route seems to be minimal, he suggests. Yet, semi-solid battery technology seems to be an area of interest for Svolt, with discussions ongoing for a “big deal.”

In terms of overseas production expansion, the company is focusing on the "H factory" in Germany with an initial acceptance in April 2024, and a battery pack factory in Thailand set to produce its first product on 20 December.

The huge update on the company’s strategy also includes the start of production in a 60,000 tonnes/year LFP hydrometallurgy recycling project in late 2024 through its subsidiary Tengqingqing.

This year, Svolt delivered 13,720 cobalt-free batteries and 5,280 fast charging short blade batteries, with shipments exceeding 13 gigawatt-hours. The batteries were deployed in over 40 EVs, including from BMW and Wuling. 

So far, the flying stack batteries are produced in Yancheng of Jiangsu Province, Shangrao of Jiangxi Province and Chengdu of Sichuan Province. The battery has a short blade structure design and is manufactured based on fly stacking technology – an ultra-high-speed stacking method that breaks the bottleneck of the current mainstream winding process.